cts have been faulty or
inadequate. This return to something more primitive is an unhealthy
atavistic tendency and makes for both racial and individual inferiority.

A word may be said regarding symbolism of the race as applied to the
individual. We have stated that symbolism is a primitive and rudimentary
way of expressing thought. It would seem logical therefore that if in
some abnormal mental states there is a return to more primitive
reactions, we may find a tendency to symbolize. This tendency is
frequently observed and the symbolism is often very elaborate. A
knowledge of the interpretation of racial symbolism is doubtless of
value in the case of the individual. When men's thoughts deal with the
same subject and when they tend to symbolize, they are likely to express
themselves in much the same way symbolically. If in abnormal mental
states thoughts are entertained which have to do with the motives we
have been discussing, it is reasonable to suppose that the racial and
individual symbolism will show certain analogies.

Again, in the pages of recent psychiatry, we learn that in abnormal
mental states there is a reversion not only to the primitive motives of
childhood, but also to the primitive motives of the race. Just to what
extent this tendency exists remains for studies of the future to show.
Certainly, striking instances may be cited; for example, let us quote
from a recent study in psychiatry:[40] "One such patient with a very
complicated delusional system states that he is the father of Adam, that
he has lived in his present human body thirty-five years, but in other
bodies thirty million years, and that during this time he has occupied
six million different bodies. He has been the great men in the history
in the development of the human race; he himself created the human race.
It took him three hundred million years to perfect the first fully
developed human being; he is both male and female and identifies all the
different parts of the Universe with his own body; heaven, hell and
purgatory are located in his limbs, the stars are pieces of his body
which had been torn apart by torture and persecution in various ages of
past history; he is the father and creator of the various races and
elements of the human organization, etc." Any one who has done even a
cursory reading in mythology cannot but be struck by the similarity in
form as well as in thought between this production and what we find in
myths.